CBS Evening News

Did Boy Scouts Keep "Perversion Files?"

In a Portland, Ore., courtroom, the witness identified as "Jack Doe No. 4" testifies uneasily about being an 11-year-old Boy Scout alone with his troop leader in 1983.

"He grabbed my hand, and he slid it up his leg into his shorts," the witness said.

The troop leader, Timur Dykes, had already admitted to a Scout official that he had molested 17 boys. Still parents were not notified and Dykes continued to work with the Scouts. In a deposition he confessed to abusing Jack Doe No. 4.

"They wanted to just get the guy to go away," said Patrick Boyle, an investigative journalist. "And let's hope he doesn't show up again. So that means very frequently, nobody told the police."

Now the secrecy is being lifted in an Oregon courtroom.

"The Perversion Files," as the Scouts called them, have rarely been seen publicly -- but now, 20,000 pages have been admitted as evidence in the trial.

"It's shocking to read case after case of sex abuse of men preying on boys," Boyle said. "What's also shocking - you realize how much the Scouts knew."

In a written statement, the Boy Scouts of America says it can't comment on the case in Oregon but says the files are used to track those "not eligible for … membership" and are just one way to "ensure a safe and healthy experience for … Scouts."

However Jack Doe No. 4 says because neither parents nor police were notified the perversion files did nothing to protect him. The abuse haunts him to this day.

"I can't sleep," he said. "Sometimes I go days without sleeping."

He's suing the Boy Scouts for $14 million, saying they should have used the perversion files not to protect the organization -- but to protect the boys.

From his base in San Francisco, CBS News correspondent John Blackstone covers breaking stories throughout the West. That often means he is on the scene of wildfires, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and rumbling volcanoes. He also reports on the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley and on social and economic trends that frequently begin in the West.